Our Lost Hope
by Final Hikari
Summary: Lymle Lemuri Phi passed through the wooden guarding walls and high arch marking Triom’s main entrance, a small flower in her hand. The once sturdy walls had become worn and crumbling; over two and years of neglected had left them to degrade.


~Entry for the StarOceanArt contest~

~Faize Sheifa Beleth x Lymle Lemuri Phi~

Our Lost Hope

Lymle Lemuri Phi passed through the wooden guarding walls and high arch marking Triom's main entrance, a small flower in her hand. The once sturdy walls had become worn and crumbling in some areas; over two and a half years of neglected had left them to degrade, like almost everything in the town. Animals had taken up residence within the houses, destroying the barren insides. Any furniture or possessions people had been forced to leave behind were long ago destroyed.

After two brutal winters, dumping numerous feet of snow upon the small village, many of the roofs to caved in. The collapsed roofs left the wooden frames at the complete mercy of nature; a few were so rickety, they looked as though they could collapse during any good storm.

The gardens patches of dirt used to grow vegetables were all overgrown, full of weeds that choked the life out of the once carefully planted and arranged rows of vegetables. She remembered helping some of the villages with the vegetable patches in early spring, when most of the things had to be planted…it was a distant memory, but a pleasant one.

The same weeds once limited to the sides of the roads had also begun to grow in the roads themselves. A stray cat living in the building that had once been the general store peered out from behind the door when it heard the gentle footsteps of a visitor. The villagers who had once lived in Triom and moved to Woodley didn't look back; she doubted many of them ever bothered to revisit their lost home.

Not that there was really a reason to; the only thickly populated area of the town was the graveyard.

She stopped when she reached the crossroads in the path. Her gaze strayed to her grandfather's house, expression distant. Triom wasn't the only town to be abandoned due to losing so many of its citizens to bacculus; in fact, she and her parents her parents had originally lived in a town yet further south, until a particularly deadly strain of the disease claimed the lives of three quarters of the population.

She hadn't liked Triom when she first arrived, though it was on less than welcoming pretenses. Her grandfather was always kind and thoughtful, but the townspeople had always looked at her strangely since she was different. She'd always keep Cerberus at her side before leaving Lemuris; it had been an unusual change to be constantly pestered _not_ to summon him. Nevertheless, the citizens of Triom always treated her as an outsider. They were never blatantly rude or unwelcoming, seeing as her grandfather was the village's Elder.

Expression somewhat forlorn, she turned down the right side of the path. She walked over to the largest house in the village, inwardly noticing it had undergone the least change. She didn't know who had taken the time to close everything up, perhaps one of the villagers or Lutea, but everything had been secured and locked to lessen the ill effects of weather and prevent animals from moving in. It was also nestled in the center of the town, protected by the other buildings.

She walked up the small stairway and ran her fingers down the rusted doorknob. She reached into her pocket and removed a heavy metal key. She slipped it into the lock, struggling to make the old gears within move. She was too preoccupied trying to force the lock open to realize a pair of violet eyes at the distance entrance had settled on her.

Finally, the lock opened. She removed the key and pushed on the door. As expected, it gave some resistance before swinging open. She didn't bother opening the other side; there would have been no reason. She stepped inside, blinking a few times before her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. At first she could only discern the shapes of things, but enough light filtered in the dusty, dirty windows to see by.

Although, they could have been completely opaque and she still would have been able to navigate through the single story house; she was familiar with the layout of all the furniture and the locations of the doors into the other rooms. She stared at the dark fireplace and closed her eyes, trying to recall all the details of one of the last times she ever entered the house and expected to find someone inside.

It had turned out to be a fateful encounter, in ways she never would have been able to predict nor forget, two and a half years later. The air inside was stagnant, but it didn't bother her. Her memories of them - especially _him_ - were not forever changing, just like the interior of the place she once called home. It felt like a lifetime ago that she had been living in Triom, and just as long since her days aboard the Calnus with its lively crew.

They were all separate; save Edge and Reimi, who had returned to Earth together. She doubted they would ever part ways, no matter what transpired. Arumat had been on Lemuris as well for a brief while before departing from the ever growing Eldarian settlements in the southeast. Though they had held to the promise of abandoning all their technology, the sheer population of the emigrants permitted their cities to be more comparable to the sizes of the ones on Roak, rather than the ones created by Lemurisians.

Not that there was much of a difference between the two races.

Leaving the door open for light, she walked over to the bedroom, expression wistful. She felt guilty about it, but she longed to walk through the Calnus' corridors far more. At first she had thought the ship was cold and unfeeling in design, but even in a child's frame of mind, she'd quickly realized the personalities of the crew were anything but.

At least, for the most part; she'd suspected otherwise of one particular crew member, but that was a long time ago. She looked around the bedroom that had once been hers and sat down on the edge of the bed, careful not to stir up too much dust. The white sheets were covered in a thick layer of dust, but were still smooth and folded perfectly atop the mattress. The various paintings, tubes of dried out paint, and other miscellaneous trinkets around the room were also undisturbed, though hidden by the dust and grime of time.

_Faize…_ She remembered her unfavorable first impression of him clearly; she still agreed with some of the things she originally thought of him, though none of it mattered; just like all the others she had cared for, he was gone. She could always travel to visit the graves of her family members, but no such memorial existed for him. Knowledge of what happened in the end was fairly restricted, but many Eldarians had managed to learn of his untimely fate. They didn't know nor care to understand what had truly happened.

Not one Eldarian - not even the ones that claimed they had been his 'friends' - would make a grave or even say a prayer. She'd only been to the Eldarian settlements once; it was too sickening to hear how they referred to him as a traitor and a murderer for being responsible for so much death and destruction. Perhaps hearing how willing so many of them were willing to condemn him helped her realize---

Her thoughts were quickly interrupted when a large spider, roughly five inches in diameter with its legs accounted for, lowered itself down barely one inch from her face. Her eyes widened and she jerked backward, away from the large insect. She fell back on the bed, sending a cloud of dust up into the air. She squinted and sneezed before she started coughing. Casting the spider a dark look as she stood, careful not to get near it or the strand of web it hung from, she departed from the room. She didn't have anything against insects, but when large ones looked as though they wanted nothing more but to crawl into her hair, she could do without them.

She sighed quietly as she walked back into the living room. She was probably wasting too much time just going to Triom as it was; it was already afternoon and she'd probably have to spend the night at Alanaire Citadel. Lutea was in Woodley, thus the dark, imposing structure was empty. The creatures that prowled around its unnaturally silent halls crept about in the night, and when the Oracle was absent, often attacked intruders heedlessly.

Even the traveler's quarters were unsafe; some of the monsters had a keen sense of smell that permitted them to follow the trail of anyone who dared enter the Citadel alone. It was impossible to rest; they simply refused to acknowledge her as an ally. She shook her head to dismiss the thought. It was too cold to stay outside and it wasn't as through it would be anything terribly unusual; for two years, she'd felt more isolated than when she was unable to express neither hope nor despair.

She looked around the house one final time, eyes settling on the empty wheelchair in the corner for a long moment before she turned toward the door. She flipped the lock closed from the inside before stepping out into the only slightly colder air. She checked to make sure the rusted mechanisms had locked properly before replacing the key in her pocket. Even if only for sentimental value, she didn't want animals getting inside and desecrating the house.

Lymle looked over to the graveyard and descended the porch's stairs. She walked over slowly, staring at the large stone 'grave marker' - if it could be called that - in the middle of the cemetery. She approached it slowly and knelt down to place the flower at the foot of the cold stone statue. She closed her eyes and clasped her hands into a prayer. A cool breeze blew through the abandoned town, stirring the trees.

* * *

Faize Sheifa Beleth watched as she placed the flower at her grandfather's grave, expression impassive. He stood on the boundaries of the town's back entrance, though he was mildly surprised she hadn't noticed his presence. Part of being a symbologist was being highly aware of ones surroundings, and the presences of other people, but he doubted she had many reasons to use the mystical science. Lemuris - Lemuria - was now a peaceful place, free of Cardianon corruption for many years.

"Grampa…," she began quietly, "I'm sorry I haven't been able to come often, 'kay?"

She opened her eyes and nodded to continue. "I'm doing good, don't worry. Lutie is teaching me a lot, and I even have lots of students myself…" she said, tone cheerful and upbeat as she lowered her hands. As anticipated, only silence greeted her. The heavy silence of death hung like a veil over the entire village.

She dismissed it to finish.

"So, you know…I'm really not lonely at all…'kay?"

Her gaze fell to the flower she'd place at the bottom of the grave and a forlorn frown appeared on her face. Her eyes were distant, making it seem as though she was remembering something. The memories were likely unpleasant, since there was little to enjoy about saying goodbye. A cold gust of wind rustled the branches in the nearby trees, sending leaves soaring into the air. It was too late in the year for many flower petals to remain; the cold was too much for them to endure.

Yet, a few stray petals still fluttered past, swaying in the air before they landed upon the ground around the grave.

He started walking forward, the noise from the trees hiding the sounds of his footsteps as he approached. The gravel of the old, uncared for road crunched beneath his boots quietly. She reached up to brush a tear from her eye as her long hair blew in the wind. She seemed to shiver slightly from the unpleasant cold before she heard his footsteps.

The gust passed through, ensuing in only silence as he stopped just an arm's length away from her. He reached out and gently placed the white flower he had brought in her hair, startling her slightly. She closed her eyes, her expression rather grim, as she turned around to face him. The silence felt interminable as he reached out to her. Her eyes were dark but the silhouette standing before her, shadowed by the bright sun, was enough to make her expression change to one of surprise and confusion.

Lymle's eyes widened and she didn't move for a moment that stretched on for what felt like a small eternity. Her eyes adjusted to the brightness of the sun and she saw his familiar violet eyes and calm smile. She only distantly realized the black cloak he'd received on Roak was gone. It seemed hard to believe, even as their eyes met and any regret left in her expression melted away. She returned the smile and ignored his outstretched hand, instead taking a hurried step forward and throwing her arms around him.

He took a step back, having not expected the uncharacteristically welcoming reaction, but gently returned the embrace. Neither of them spoke, undoubtedly because she was still finding it difficult to believe.

"Faize…are you real?" she whispered softly.

"Of course I am," he replied warmly. "Lemuria is supposed to be home to us both, right?"

"Yeah…but…everyone lost hope. No one thought you'd come back…" she said simply. She still smiled as her eyes filled with tears for a second time as she looked up at him, but this time, he wiped them away himself.

"I'm not going to disappear this time."

* * *

Final Hikari: Ta-da! My spin at novelizing the ending. I nearly gagged writing the last scene. I hope you enjoyed it. XD And sorry of the dialogue in the end wreaked of "Oh Cerberus crap, my deadline is in a few minutes!"

Reimi: -face palm- Did you have to kill the moment like that?

Final Hikari: Not really, but it's just so corny… XD I don't feel comfortable writing such a cornicopia (not to be confused with a cornucopia, which has nothing to do with corny fluff) of sweet romance.

Reimi: Obviously…but what's wrong with sweet romance? It's so cute!

Final Hikari: Yes, but it isn't my area of expertise for writing. XD I don't own anything from the Star Ocean: The Last Hope. And if I did, that would have been animated, and you'd be watching it in the game instead of reading it here. Thank you for reading and please check out my other Star Ocean fan fictions, all of which will be receiving routine updates again very soon! And the next Star Ocean oneshot I'll be releasing will be a Reimi x Crowe oneshot for Iniphineas! Go check out her artwork on DA, she's quite amazing. :D

Reimi: O.O How many different men do you plan to pair me with…?


End file.
